THE CUR.R.ENT CINEMA
MALE CALL
"Leaves of Grass, " "City Island, " and 'The Bounty Hunter. "
BY DAVID DENBY
E dward Norton is a good actor
and a busy man-a citizen who
concerns himself with solar energy,
affordable housing, the Maasai wilder-
ness, peace in the Middle East, the
High Line, the fate of the Mets' outfield,
and heaven knows what else. But he's
not quite a movie star, or the actor he
could be. Early on, after a fast, Oscar-
nominated start as an altar boy accused
of murdering a priest in "Primal Fear"
(1996), Norton played cunning lowlifes
in tough little pictures. He was brilliant
as Lester (Worm) Murphy, a reckless
gambler and nihilist, in "Rounders"
(1998), and then, muscling up, he
turned Derek Vinyard, the swastikaed
skinhead in "American History X" (also
1998), into a horrifYingly intelligent na-
tive fascist. Norton has blue eyes, a long,
narrow chin, and an ironic smile that
can suddenly turn intimate. He can be
retiring and nearly bodiless, falling back
from confrontation like a ghost; he can
also be menacing and cold, hardening
his baritone into a snarl. Like James
Woods in films thirty years ago, he ap-
pears to think that hè s the smartest per-
son in the room, and, like Woods, he
uses that arrogance as a way of exposing
the madness of egotistical characters. At
the moment, movies could use more
men like Norton-actors who can
spread a little acid or a little light. If such
high-domed performers develop an in-
gratiating way with women, they be-
come stars, like George Clooney; if not,
they usually subside into character roles,
like Woods or Alec Baldwin. It's not
easy to be the smartest guy in the
room.
Norton, I think, has the charm, the
courage, and the dimensions to take on
great parts, but his career has wandered
around in roles that have been off cen-
ter without being good. He stood up to
Brad Pitt's bullying in the nutty cult
classic "Fight Club" (1999). He was
the scientist with anger-management
86 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 5, 2010
issues in "The Incredible Hulk" (2008),
the kind of popping-veins extrava-
ganza every actor should gratefully
leave to Jim Carrey. He was swanky in
cravats, high collars, and an Anglo-
Austrian accent in that thick wedge of
Hapsburg cheesecake "The Illusionist"
(2006). The accent got even more
pinched and refined when he played a
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a mesmerizing classical-philosophy
professor at Brown. He's also Bill's
identical twin, Brady, an Oklahoma
pot grower with truck-stop manners
and a peculiar drawl (peculiar because
it runs at double tempo). Brady is ev-
erything that Bill left behind in his as-
cent to the Ivy League. Citing Soc-
rates, Bill tells his class that the Greeks
knew that passion was "mercilessly
human," that a serene life was an illu-
sion. Yet he's a becalmed man him-
self-another asexual, dried-up movie
professor without a touch of spontane-
ity. As he considers an offer from Har-
vard (the film drops all the right
names), he hears that Brady has been
killed. This is a ruse, it turns out, to
lure him back to Oklahoma, where he
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Edward Norton, playing a double role as twin brothers, with Richard Dreyfuss.
British doctor suppressing his personal
sorrows and martyring himself to Chi-
nese epidemics in "The Painted Veif'
(2006), a frightfully noble picture that
could have been made by M -G- M in
1940. These are not the best choices
for an actor with an instinct for con-
temporary life. Action is apparently
not to Norton's taste, but he's a natural
for calculating power types and in-
tellectuals-gangsters, lawyers, poli-
ticians, journalists, corporate and fi-
nancial operators. He needs to find
writers who will create roles for him as
intelligent, troubled men, as Clooney
has.
In "Leaves of Grass," Norton gets a
real workout in a goosey, half-serious,
half-comical mess. He's Bill Kincaid,
gets pulled into his brother's convo-
luted plot to take on the drug kingpin
of the Southwest (Richard Dreyfuss).
As Bill, Norton wears his hair short,
his sweaters sleeveless, and his slacks
gray; his style is academic casual. When
he plays Brady, his hair is long and
stringy; he's loose-limbed and slack-
jawed, and he can't stop chattering.
The surprise of the movie is that Brady
the pot grower is just as smart as Bill
the professor, and a lot happier. He
cultivates dope in mineral-water solu-
tions-he's a hydroponic felon-and
his weed packs a wallop. Norton gives
o
himself to this reprobate without con -
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descension. He turns Brady into a
warmhearted, enraging, but lovable
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screwup. >